Never forget the truth
by LoveNeverFades1809
Summary: Nothing is at it seems. But she would fight to find the truth, even if she had to give her life for it. (First fanfic ever)
1. The Beginning

**I don't own Naruto (it's sad, but it's the truth... ㅠㅠ). I just edited it a bit and reloaded the chapter! ****But I hope you like the story! **

* * *

Life is war. It's nothing you can end on sheer willpower. No one really wins it at the end because both sides have to endure losses. An never-ending cycle full of hatred and grief, sorrow and death - that's what life is. It was unforgiving, and each time she thought it was over, it just started to begin once more. At least it was this kind of impression she got. There was no place for love or life at all. Or hope. Hope is not something you should spend your time on. All you can get from it is despair and hopelessness. She was sick of seeing blood and death every time she closed her eyes, but she couldn't avoid it.

The young girl stood up from her wooden bed slowly, crossed the room and went to the window of her bedroom. The moon was shining brightly on the desk standing next to the window. It contained each and every one of the letters he wrote to her for all those years, including the last one she got from him three years ago. If someone would have made her recite the letter, it would had been no problem. By now, she knew it by heart... as often as she had read it since it had arrived via the eagle they used to communicate. She sighed, looking out into the clear and dark sky, the stars sparkling in their not definable rhythm as if to tease her or even send her a hidden message from him.

It was a quiet night in the Village of the Hidden Leaf, a quiet and peaceful one, and it wasn't the first time that the dark-haired girl would wish for such kind of peace in her own heart. But ever since the letters from her friend stopped abruptly, shortly after she had graduated form the Academy, she had a growing feeling of restlessness, as if a ring was of steel was clamping around her heart with more pressure with each passing second. It wasn't the first time, she wanted to tell her parents about it, but she just didn't.

"What shall I do - or better, what can I do?" The famous question kept spinning through her head, wherever she was, whatever she did and no matter what time it was. Like just now. She knew she was called a genius and that the whole village thought she must have inherited such amount of talent from her parents - no wonder, with her father being one of the most celebrated heroes in the whole ninja world and her mother being the heir of the Hyuuga clan. But nearly no one was really interested in what she was thinking, or who she was in real. Not what Uzumakki Akemi was really capable of. But this wasn't important now. She didn't know the reason for it, but she wanted to search for him. Ever since she heard that there were weird attackings going on in Sunagakure, the attempted murder on the latest Kazekage, and the regular massacres in the surrounding villages and countries - including Konohagakure, though they didn't have to count too much losses yet - she had the strong urge to take the matters into her own hands and start research about all of those happenings. There was this strange feeling in the pit of her stomach that going there would start solving her problems...

"Akemi, can't sleep yet?"

The called person nearly went through the roof, when she heard her mother's soothing voice behind her. "Mum, you scared me!"

Smiling, Uzumaki Hinata put a hand gently on the shoulder of the child. The last ten years didn't go past her without showing their blessings. She married the love of her life, started a new beginning as the wife of the Godaime and one of the head doctors in the Konoha Hospital. Instead, she stopped going to missions and cared more then ever for her family. So, the expression on the face of Takara's mother was full of worries, when she saw her daughter standing at the window and staring into the dark sky again.

"Are you still waiting for some answer from Yoshio?"

Akemi knew lying wasn't an option, so she simply nodded. "I just don't understand, why he stopped writing all of a sudden, Mum. We were laughing and joking one day, and the next day he is just... gone - as if he had never existed. Did I do something wrong? Why doesn't he answer anymore?" Hinata could feel the wild swirling and confused emotions behind those words, and those were the kind of days she just wanted to pull her into her arms and tell her that everything would be fine, that there was nothing to be worried about. But as she looked into the eyes of the girl next to her, she didn't saw the innocence of a pure ten-year-old girl in them. She saw the wounds of the soul, caused by the never-ending missions combined with danger and death of enemies and comrades, and seeing the girl desperately clutching after the existence of the one and only steady person who had been firm as a rock in her whole life apart from her family was heart-breaking. And saying the following words wasn't easy for her, but she had to do it - for her sake.

"Sweetheart, I know it's hard, but you know the life of the shinobi, and perhaps..." - "No! He is not dead, I just know it!"

She knew her mother would react like this. Every time, she tried to talk to her parents about Yoshio lately, they tried to change the subject or they wanted to persuade her into forgetting him. When she went to her father and asked him, to give her a mission to search for intel about him, he nearly went berserk - and for the first time of her life she even got slapped by him. Everything she would hear from her parents relating to her friend was something like "You have to forget him" or "You know the life and the dangers of being a ninja" et cetera et cetera. But this was so untypical of her parents.

Of course she grew up with those stories about her father, saving the world and ending the Fourth Great Ninja War, together with his best friend the famous Uchiha Sasuke, who was deceased by now. She remembered how she had always asked her mother to tell her bedtime stories about how the famous Uzumaki Naruto would try to retrieve his friend from the darkness of the path he chose to take. But the same person who had been just a bit older than herself right now and who risked everything just to rescue one soul would do nothing, absolute nothing when a friend of her was in danger. Instead, he would try to stop her in repeating history. But why? Shouldn't he be proud of his older daughter? And her mother, didn't she risk her own life more than once just to save her father? It didn't make any sense to her. And all of this thoughts crossed her mind during those few seconds, so instinctively, she didn't know any other way than to react except shouting the said sentence and running out of the room and to the rooftop, crying. But while she was running upstairs, she knew one thing for sure: "If no one is going to help me, then I will do it by myself!" What she didn't know, was that this would be the one decision that wouldn't only turn her life, but the one of the whole ninja world upside down...

* * *

**Please R&R! Even though it doesn't seem like it now, it is in fact a Sasuke & Sakura fanfic! I'm going to upload the next chapter as soon as I can, if anybody is interested. Sorry, if there are some grammar mistakes, but I just don't have a beta reader! =D**


	2. The last letter

_Dear Akemi-chan,_

_Congratulations on graduating the Academy! I knew you could make it, even though you were worried about it all the time. Surely, you aced all the tests with flying colors, right? I'm sure that your parents are really proud of you and so am I. And I'm so sorry that I couldn't follow your invitation in taking part in your graduation. I know you were so excited about finally meeting me, and believe me that I really wanted to go - but I got busy with a solo mission all of a sudden, that's why I couldn't even answer to your letters till right now. _

_I'm sure you heard about the rumors about the attackings all around the Land of Fire, which was one of the reasons I couldn't visit you. You are a genin now, and I know you are strong and talented, but I want you to be careful. The rumors say that there are some troops remaining from the Fourth Ninja War, hiding around to sabotage the cooperation between the Allied Shinobi Forces and planning a coup d'êtat against Sunagakure or even Konoha. You know as well as I do that even though we had won the war itself, there had been many shinobi who were and still are against this collaboration. Thinking this would weaken their own villages or being afraid of losing their clans' hidden secrets to the other nations. It's rubbish to share thoughts like this, but you can't stop those people.  
_

_Perhaps it might seem paranoid to you, but make sure that you are always within reach of your team mates when you are on missions. Always stay near your parents and don't do something hot-headed. Promise me that you are going to take care of yourself, no matter what happens. _

_I'm always thinking about you._

_Yoshio_

_P.S: I hope you like the necklace I attached to the letter. And thank you for the photograph of you and your family in the last letter. You are really coming after your mother._

* * *

**I think that I'm going to post the new chapters regularly, even though they might be a bit short for some people. I'm working on my writing skills, but I hope you liked it. R&R please!**


	3. You can't hide the truth!

The moment she read the last lines written by her mysterious friend, she had looked everywhere after the mentioned necklace. Above and under the piece parchment, she turned it up and down, looked on the left and right side of it, but nothing. Nothing at all. "Would he have forgotten to attach it to the letter?" This thought had come into her mind so often being the most natural conclusion, but she dropped it as often as it came. She had never met this boy she had been writing with since she was about four, but she had the feeling he wasn't the kind of person who would promise anything easily without at least trying to keep it. This thought had been the only reason comforting her when he didn't came to her graduation day. Of course her parents and friends had been with her, saying how proud they were of Akemi, but still - she felt lost, somehow.

She remembered how she had told her parents jumping up and down that Yoshio had promised her to come to the celebration. And she remembered the restrained smile her father was giving her, while ruffling her hair and asking: "Are you that happy about it, sweety?"

"Of course I am, Daddy! You know how I long I had been waiting for meeting him, especially after the photo he send me from him!" - "I see...", and he went out of the living room after getting up from the couch he had been sitting on with his wife, squeezing Akemi's shoulder lightly. Her mother on the other hand who had been witnessing this whole scene sighed quietly and slowly dropped the book on the table besides the couch. "Akemi, would you come here for a minute, dear?"

Hearing her mother's request, she started to move towards her slowly and sat down on her left, looking her straight "Sure, Momma, what's the matter? Did I do something wrong? Why did Daddy just go away?"

She saw her mother struggling while trying to find the right words carefully. "No, no, you didn't do anything wrong. But tell me, Akemi... are you really that happy about finally meeting Yoshio?"

Akemi knew this question would come. This was one of the reactions being so obvious, as it always came up by even mentioning Yoshio, though she rarely did it at all. The young girl had always been a quiet and calm child, despite her father often being called "the loudest Hokage having ever existed in the history of the Hidden Leaf". Even Hinata, her mother, slowly started to regain her self-confidence after laying down all of the pressure of being the heir of the famous Hyuuga clan with her marriage to Naruto. She had heard from stories from her parents or their friends when she was younger - and all this time, she heard that her mother had been shy and timid, being the exact opposite from her father at that time. But looking at herself, she neither came after her father, nor her mother. Sure, she had friends like her best friend Nara Sayuri, the daughter of Nara Shikamaru, the current Captain of the ANBU Black Ops, and Nara Ino, the most famous flourist in the Land of Fire, she liked hanging out with as they grew up together most of their childhood. But it didn't mean she was too social - she would rather go to the training grounds and try out some jutsus she had read about in the books from the library in the Hokage Tower. As the daughter of the Hokage, most people faced her with quite the same amount of respect as towards her parents, which was annoying, but it even gave her the possibility to wander around in the workplace of her father without being thrown out. So she used most of her free time exploring the village or the residence, or reading and training at the training grounds - alone. Even playing with her little brother Akio, though she loved him with all her heart, seemed to be an annoying burden to her sometimes...

So it might seem quite astonishing that she was excited about meeting someone - anyone - she hadn't meet her whole life and had just seen on a photo once. A complete stranger. But in the same time, this boy was the closest person she ever had. She loved her family, but sometimes she got the feeling they couldn't understand her. As if ... there was some kind of barrier separating them. Akemi knew that none of this made any sense, which is why she kept all of these thoughts to herself. She didn't want to hurt her family or her friends, but even though they were always around her, she felt... lonely. As if she was an outcast. Being called the "Princess of Konoha" or a prodigy didn't make it easier for her at all. It might be jealousy of her social position, her grades... about almost anything or even honest admiration, but still... "If they just knew…"

Did they know how hard the life of a true shinobi was? Did all of those kids, who had dreams about becoming the next Hokage or the next hero of the village know what they were talking about? You had to sacrifice everything. You learned not to trust anyone easily anymore. Behind each corner there could be an enemy waiting, just waiting for a moment in which you were careless, simply to cut your throat with a hidden kunai in his back. People who you thought they were your teammates were turning out to be spies. And if you finally had the luck to find one soul you could trust on, it would be taken away from you without a warning. This was the true life of a shinobi, to endure and make it through endless suffering. You didn't have a free will, you were a mere puppet, used for the sake of others. You had to endure and endure and endure and give all you had to survive. Or rather for having a chance to survive.

She didn't choose to become a jonin last year out of her free will. The council thought it would be a waste if someone talented as her shouldn't become one despite what her parents and teachers were saying. Officially declared to being a jonin would normally be something anybody would have been proud of. But not her.

For Akemi, it was just a title. A title, especially the council could use to make her follow explicit missions, whether she wanted or not. As long as they got what they wanted – more power and money – everything was okay. It didn't matter to them whether this might cause lifelong traumatas or whether you were just a child. You didn't count as individual, period. And those were the times she would like to leave everything behind and start a new life somewhere, where no one would know her.

The only things that didn't make her go nuts at those hard times were those letters. She never shared them with anyone, not her parents nor her best friend, as she felt that no one else would understand the connection being shared by the two of them. When she wrote with him, she felt as if she could pour out her soul into him, but he wouldn't judge her for her feelings towards her friends, her family, or even towards all the other villagers – on the contrary, he would support her and try to comfort her in his own way. She had noticed it from the beginning that he didn't seem to be a person of many words. She even remembered that the first letters they wrote to each other were rather similar to objective mission reports, but with time passing they became longer and more emotional. When she wrote with Yoshio, she didn't feel like a shinobi prodigy, but just like a girl who could trust everything she had in her heart into someone else's. She didn't have to pretend or wear the fake smile she had learned to perfect with time. She just could be herself. So it was a natural answer to her: "Yes, of course, Mum. He is my friend."

Akemi knew she could explain it farther, but she was mildly surprised by the facial expression her mother wore after her short answer – she knew her mother better than she knew herself, but she wouldn't have expected her to seem so sad about her daughter's answer. "Is that so…", she muttered and stood up, leaving a frozen Akemi behind.

* * *

Something felt awfully off and she knew it. Ever since she read the last letter all those times ago - no, beginning with the last conversation about Yoshio's visit with her parents, there had been so many question jumping into her mind. "Why didn't he keep his promise? Why did he write that I come after my mum? But most important - what necklace is he talking about?!"

The young girl had always been good at reading people's emotion - and something told her that her parents were hiding something. She had the impression as if they tried everything to prevent the meeting between her and her longtime-pen pal, but the reason was, why? All of her parents' reactions by even mentioning the boy were accompanied by sorrowful looks, so with her growing age, she started to reduce talking about him towards everyone. But she couldn't take it any longer, not after what had happened during the last mission she went to…

She shook her head. "Now is not the time to think about it, Akemi. Focus!" she interrupted herself from the bad memories which had been threatening to come up just moments ago. She knew she would have to deal with it, but now was not the time for it.

After the little argument she had had with her mother the night before, her mother tried to act as if nothing happened. This was nothing new, even her father trying to make a normal conversation during breakfast… but failing miserably as usual. "Who wants to talk about all the different kinds of ramen anyway? No wonder Dad is that bad at small talk…" she said mainly to herself while wandering through the streets of Konoha. The young girl needed some fresh air after everything that happened during the last few days, so after bringing Akio to the Academy she used her free time – the first free day since about three months – to explore the village and its daily activities.

Twelve years have passed since the end of the Fourth Great Ninja War, a time full of death and sorrow. Some many people, shinobi and civilians had to give their lives, just because a hurt soul wanted to ease his heart, but for which price? She didn't know the whole story, but at the end, her father and somebody Uchiha Sasuke were able to stop him, but not without suffering great losses… Every time Akemi or someone else wanted to talk to Naruto about it, he started blocking and changing the topic. But as time goes passes, so does the memories of the people fade – Naruto became the next Hokage after three years of training under the Fifth Hokage – "Granny Tsunade", as her father would call her – and Sasuke? Strangely, no one even asked about him or even mentioned his name. Everything she could find by doing some research was the remark in the history books of the Academy that Uchiha Sasuke has been known to be the last remaining heir of the famous Uchiha clan who seemed to have played a big role in the last big battle. Nothing more.

The villagers didn't care about another shinobi amongst them, at least not as much as compared to the enormous task of rebuilding their once so beautiful village. Akemi roughly remembered the numerous construction areas where she had been playing with Sayuri all those years ago, especially if you looked at this place today. It was as if the whole village was screaming "No one can bring us down!" or "When did something like the Fourth Great War ever happened?".

People were laughing going to work or doing chores, children were running around and playing with each other, no trace of mistrust or sadness in their eyes. And sometimes – just as today – she wished she could have back this innocence like those children. Just laughing and having fun, the worst that could happen to you was being scolded by your mother for dirtying your clothes… "But this is just a childish and wishful thinking", she told herself. She had seen too much and did too much with her own bare hands to ever return to this kind of innocence. But still, she felt envious about them. Those children had their whole future in front of them. They could choose what to become and how to fulfill their own dreams and hopes. They didn't had that iron cage called "fate"or "shinobi" around them – the kind of iron cage that would define your next steps, no matter whether you want it or not…

„Someday she is going to find out the truth, Naruto, and do you think she can forgive you so easily? All of us?" Akemi looked up. She had been so absorbed into her thoughts that she didn't notice returning home at all. She just wanted to say "I'm back home" when she heard a fist colliding with something hard, the sound coming from the living room. "I know, Shikamaru. But what can I do? The truth is going to destroy her. She is going to hate us for what we did to her!"

"And she is never going to forgive us if we keep on like that. She is old enough to deal with the truth, Naruto. And she is already beginning to be suspicious because of the stopping letters. Remember whose daughter she is…"

Akemi paused. She knew that eavesdropping wasn't the most elegant sort of thing to do, but she didn't do it on purpose, right? And now she knew for sure, her parents – or at least her father and the Captain of the ANBU – were hiding something from her. And that something was related to Yoshio. "What could they have done that Dad is afraid I might never forgive him? Yoshio might not be dead, right? No, he can't be. Dad didn't like him, but he wouldn't hide this kind of information from me… And what was Captain Nara to do with it?!" She was confused, and her thought were going through each possible scenario she could imagine – from abduction to murder, to her father threatening a scared Yoshio to stay away from his baby girl… "Well, the last possibility would be quite amusing", she thought when she heard the moving of chairs from inside the living room. Akemi panicked. "I have to get out of here, or I'm doomed!" As fast and as quiet as possible she sneaked away from the door, hoping that no one had noticed her little stunt.

* * *

She had to find the truth, there was no way she could avoid it. But to be honest there was nearly nothing she knew about Yoshio, not even his surname. "I should have asked him about that one" she cursed herself, while trying to find something, anything that could give her more intels about her friends background. But it couldn't be helped. The only chance for her to find anything was looking for the report books, which were in the office of her father and which contained reports about each mission that were ever given to the shinobi teams since the existence of the Leaf.

Akemi thought about looking him up in the Bingo book at first, but she knew all of the names of the high ranked criminals by heart, so she didn't bother with it. Besides, she was looking for a boy at about her age, how could he be a criminal? And looking him up in the library was no option at all – first of all, it would take ages to try and find anything with the scarce information about him, and it would be just a matter of time till her parents would find out about this – something she wanted to avoid as long as possible. What would happen if she found something was a problem she'd have to deal with later. But for now, she decided, she would have to wait for the perfect chance to sneak up into her father's office.

Fate must have meant it well with the young jonin – at least she thought so – as her father was called to a sudden council meeting in the Land of Waves the following day while the Uzumaki family was sitting at the breakfast table. Naruto sighed as he folded the scroll he was reading, containing the mission report he was given the day before by Shikamaru. He loved his new work as the Hokage, looking after the safety of the village, secure the cooperation of the Allied Shinobi Forces since the end of the last Great War, but he absolutely loathed sitting together with the council members while trying to knock some sense into their stubborn and selfish heads. But he knew there was no point in trying to avoiding it. You just couldn't have just the fun part, it was all or nothing. The faster he would arrive and start the meeting the faster he would be back at home, so he swallowed down the last remainings of the egg rolls Hinata had made him for breakfast, with one last gulp of coffee and stood up heading for the doorway. He took the traditional gown of the Hokage from the wardrobe and opened the door. "Be good and don't go on your mother's nerves while I'm gone, okay? I should be back tonight, if nothing intervenes."

His wife knew exactly how he felt – before passing down her position as the next Hyuuga heir to her younger sister Hana, she had to attend those meetings once in a while as a representative of her clan. She knew her husband's temper all too well, so she followed him out of the kitchen to the doorway, sending him off with an encouraging smile.

Akemi just couldn't believe her luck – this would give her the perfect opportunity to sneak into her father's office and look after the so needed books! But she had to be careful to avoid her mother noticing something irregular in her actions. So although she was feeling the tension in her whole body as she had to stop herself from sprinting out of the window and heading to the Hokage Tower, the rational part of her knew such an action would be extremely stupid. As far as she knew, her father could be heading into his office first before going to the mentioned meeting and would catch her red-handed while she was trying to break into the one stupid room she was not allowed to enter during his absence! The other problem was to find the right moment to break in. The girl didn't know how severely the entrance into the room was protected, so she couldn't estimate the range of time she would need to gain entrance into the room. But she knew that there were two guards watching the floor the office was in by going up and down in a regular pace. From one of her earlier visits Akemi knew that circling this stage of the tower would take about 15 minutes, plus about five minutes when they were changing the guards about noon for lunch break. That would be the best and only chance to put her plan into action; she knew she was risking a lifetime of being grounded if she was caught, but her friend was worth the risk, she decided. There hadn't been much to prepare for her break-in into the office, and for not attracting her mother's attention, she offered to bring Akio to the Academy as usual and told Hinata that she would be late for she was planning to spend some time with Sayuri. As her mother didn't mind her doing so, she went upstairs to her room to get ready and prayed that everything would go well.

* * *

She nearly couldn't believe it herself. She got in! As planned she dropped her little brother at the Academy and after talking to her old teacher Kakashi-sensei who had been her sensei during her short time as a genin she slowly approached the Hokage Tower. She suspected that her father gave the most workers a day off as he wasn't in the residence himself, because she barely saw anyone on her way up to her father's office.

Every time she felt someone coming into striking distance, she hid herself behind the walls or pillars which were stabilizing the building, or – if nothing else was possible, she jumped out of the next window and hold on to the outer walls of the masonry. It wasn't unusual for her to appear in the residence for reading in the library, doing some research or just for studying, but she wanted to make sure that no one would see her and have even the slightest chance of informing her parents about her whereabouts. She didn't even have to worry about the guards standing watch on the top floor. After the exchange of the guards she tiptoed to the door of the office, afraid that it was attached with some kind of alarm going off, if a stranger would come into its range. But when she tapped on the door carefully, nothing happened. No genjutsu activated, no alarm bells, just nothing. "Okay…? This might be easier than I thought…?" She took out a hairpin out of her left pocket, bent it for stabilizing it and plugged it into the lock. "That's strange…"

Normally, she would pick a lock in less than thirty seconds, but why didn't it work this time? Perhaps her father had strengthened the pins inside the lock so picking it was impossible? She took one more glance at it, but she was sure that she couldn't spot such kind of anomaly. Knowing her father he wouldn't have even thought of something like this. But even though she tried every trick she had upon her sleeve, it didn't work. "Could it be…?" She sweatdropped… of course all of this wouldn't work if the door had been open all the time, but her father would not not lock the door, would he? "Well, I can try, at least?" She pushed down the silver-coloured handle. "You're kidding me, right?!"

* * *

Akemi stretched herself after sitting that much on one and the same place for over five hours. When she looked out of the window she saw that the sun was starting to go down already. "I didn't notice the time flying…"

At first, she didn't know where to start searching. The first moment she entered the office she saw nothing else but huge amounts of paper piles everywhere. "No wonder mum is always going nuts about his filing system… or let's rather say his not-existing filing system." She had the impression as if a storm broke loose with its center being the office. But she had no other possibility. "… Off you go, Akemi… at least Daddy is not going to notice if something might be missing or rearranged…"

She searched and searched for hours, at least it felt like an eternity in her opinion. She looked into each cupboard, pulled out each drawer of the desk at least thrice and scanned every single book in being scattered on the floor and on the bookshelves just as often as she did with the drawers. "Where is this damn book?"

"Okay, if I was Daddy, where would I put down this book?" she wondered. "It wouldn't be… no, Daddy…" She opened the door close-by, leading to a small kitchen. And there it was, laying on the small dining table next to a cup ramen!

She shook her head… „And this is our beloved Hokage… making decisions while slurping ramen…" She grabbed the book and went back into the main office after closing the kitchen door behind her. There was no time to waste – her father or anyone could return any moment!

Akemi read each page carefully. She knew she could rely on the photographic memory, but she wanted to be sure to miss no single clue, but still, she found nothing. The name "Yoshio" had only been mentioned once, but this had been in the context with an assassination mission ages ago during the time of the Third Hokage and she was sure that her friend wasn't just a letter-writing corpse. She sighed. She didn't come forth at all – all she knew was that she should drop by more often and help her father cleaning the office, and this wasn't the kind of information she had been looking for, seriously.

She stood up to put the report book back to its former place when something fell out of the back cover. She looked down. It seemed to be an old photograph, judging by the size and the waved frame of the piece of paper. Akemi bent down to pick it up. "The original Team Seven – Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto", she read, as the piece fell down on its front side. "Uchiha Sasuke… isn't it…? I know that name from somewhere…" she thought, while turning the photograph around. She started to stand up again, planning to put it back into the book, when she nearly froze midway. She blinked. "This isn't possible…!" She blinked again, half-hoping that she was imagining things, caused by all the stress during the last days and weeks, but the photograph – better, the contents of the photo wouldn't fade away. As fast and as possible she went to the windows while trying to calm her shaking hands which were grabbing the old piece as if her life was depending on it to use the last sunrays of the day to make sure that the expansion of the darkness in the room didn't deceive her eyes.

There were four people visible on the photo – an elderly man wearing a jonin west with grey and spiky hair and a black-blue mask covering most of the sub-part of his face. In front of him Akemi could recognize a pretty, young girl who was about the same age as herself. She had pink hair which framed her face on both sides in form of bangs neatly. She seemed to radiance pureness and innocence – "Something which isn't a part a part of my life anymore" Akemi thought, but that wasn't important. More important were the remaining people on both sides of the girl.

The young boy on the right side of the photo unmistakably was her father Naruto when he was younger, though he was rather looking grimly. The spiky yellow hair and the orange shirt he was wearing had always been his trademarks. More interesting in her eyes was the other boy, standing next to the girl on her right side. He had raven-black, chin-length hair, which hung over both sides of his face, framing his cheeks. He had a rather thin pale face with mesmerizing onyx eyes and was wearing a blue shirt with a high collar. Though he was looking grumpy on the shot, Akemi could imagine that he must have been quite popular with the girls despite his young age. But it weren't only his stunning and so familiar looks that she was so disturbed about, but also the forehead protector with the Konoha leaf-symbol on the metallic plate he wore like the others on the photo.

Slowly, as if she was afraid of exposing a dark truth, she put her right hand into the little pouch she was wearing on her belt which contained her weapons, so first-aid medications and her most prized possession, which she pulled out of it with an almost pained expression on her face, as if the sky might suddenly crush her with all its might. It was an old photograph she was now holding in her right hand and was putting next to the just found one.

Her eyes swang back and forth between the two photos. She had never fainted once in her whole life, not when seeing the first kill during one of her missions, not while she had to endure much more pain than a little body like hers could normally muster during the jonin exams, but now she had to mobilize all her willpower to prevent herself from doing so: The boy on the photo Yoshio had sent her ages ago was looking exactly like Uchiha Sasuke.

* * *

**This is the longest chapter I've written yet. I hope you like it, at least I do ^.^ And don't worry, Sasuke and Sakura are going to appear in the story soon!  
**

**R&R please!**


End file.
